Charlie, What teams had scouts there yesterday?

Oh just give Mich that goal. C’mon.

Your successor at Athletic seems to think that it is more likely that the Flyers wont be trading Laughton and Risto this trade deadline. Have you heard anything that supports or contradicts that?

I am not sure if landing another 2nd round pick or whatever moves the needle enough to trade Laughton – especially if we have a couple of new players (Luchenko, Bonk) joining the team next year. Enough people who knows hockey and locker room seem to think he brings a positive value to the team there, and that carries more weight than the opinion of some fan who thinks roster construction works like it does in video games.

Risto – the cap space from moving him would be nice and having that cap space by draft day would be extra helpful, if they plan to turn their plethora of picks into a proven player.

Commenting on the most important and relevant issue for the Flyers this week, which has nothing to do with the above article, (well maybe the mention of how well Risto played again), is that the decision to trade Risto or not by 3:00 pm Friday is a no brainer. First, he is having perhaps the best year of his career, so trading him now is selling high. In other words, his trade value will never be higher, so DB has to find a way to get a first round pick back for Risto in the next 48 hours or so.
How can he do this? There has to be 8 or so playoff bubble teams interested, and has to be another 6 teams that are elite, interested in a skilled, strong, tough, right handed high minutes second line D-man with two more years left on his contract. If he was 22 years old, he would be perfect for Flyers to hold onto, since that age would be in line with the roster that will eventually be part of a perennial cup contender (if the GM rebuild work is done right). But Risto is not 22, and he will not be part of the team when Flyers are relevant again as a Cup contender. Thus, this has to be the time he is traded. At $5.1 mil for the next 2 years, Risto is not overpaid. Good value for the buyer.
With probably half the league interested in Risto, DB is in the driver’s seat to get back a first rounder that could eventually be a part of the future Cup roster, or be used to acquire the elite talent in a future trade for that future roster. DB has to be willing to toss in a 2nd rounder if he is getting a bubble team’s first rounder back, which is the preferred deal for the Flyers as that would be one of the highest draft pick possibilities coming back in a trade. The worse the team trading for Risto, the better draft pick coming back to the Flyers. Further, to make the cap work, DB has to be willing to take back an expiring contract about equal to Risto’s. This is the sort of trade Howie Roseman would make. It is the expected work of a top shelf GM.
So we are going to learn a lot about DB’s trading skills by this Friday. Is he going to be a great GM, or even a pretty good GM who can truly rebuild this franchise into a perennial cup contender, or is he going to be an amateur, getting fleeced, or too inept, to get the right deal done, a deal that is truly a layup for most sports team GMs.